The phenomenon of reboiler leakage

If the reboiler leaks, steam will enter the bottom of the tower, increasing the water content of the components within the tower; this leads to an increase in the pressure at the top of the tower and a decrease in the temperature at the bottom.

If the leakage is small, the steam goes into the medium; if the leakage is large, the condensed water discharged from the steam contains the medium

What concerns me the most is how the temperatures at the bottom and top of the distillation column change as the reboiler leakage increases from minor to severe levels When the leakage amount is small, the bottom and top temperatures of the tower should decrease. But when the leakage amount is large, a large amount of steam enters the tower directly – do the top and bottom temperatures still decrease in such cases?

From what you’ve described, it seems that saturated steam should be used as the heating medium; the temperature of saturated steam is generally above 200°C, with a pressure of 1.0 Mpa； So, generally, the temperature at the bottom of a distillation tower is below 200°C, and the pressure, according to you, should be lower than the steam pressure. Based on the above conditions, it can be seen that as the leakage amount increases from low to high, the bottom temperature of the tower should decrease, and the top temperature of the tower also changes accordingly. However, when the temperature at the bottom of the tower is equal to the steam temperature, it should be in a state of equilibrium at that time.

Reply to 5# liaifeng: Hello, I’m kankandongtian. I just saw your analysis on the reboiler leakage issue. I think it’s like this: when the steam is saturated steam, the temperature is 200°C and the pressure is 0.1 MPa. When the leakage from the reboiler is small, it is because the heat capacity of water is generally greater than that of the medium in the distillation column. When water enters the distillation column, the change in the composition of the medium inside the column leads to a decrease in the temperature at the bottom of the column, as well as a decrease in the temperature at the top of the column. However, when the leakage amount is large, it is as if steam acts directly on the medium inside the tower, which should raise the temperature at the bottom of the tower until it reaches the same level as the steam temperature. Since it’s not certain whether such a judgment is accurate, I’m posting this to ask.

Is the pressure in your distillation tower even below 0.1 MPa? For the other 2 materials, the mixing temperature after they come into contact should be closer to the lower value; only when equilibrium is reached, that is, when the temperatures are equal, will no further changes occur. Also, I think what you mean is that there is a process in which the amount of steam leakage changes from quantitative to qualitative levels, right? I consider the problem based on the law of conservation of energy!